


when I’m gone you’ll need love to light the shadows on your face

by suzukiblu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Gen, M/M, Mental Instability, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Miscommunication, Robots Love Cyborgs, Solitary Confinement, Therapy Robots, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark's Robots - Freeform, Unreliable Narrator, post-AoU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 02:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4245339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it. It’s been two months; they’re barely even questioning him anymore. </p><p>It’s obvious that no one’s ever letting him see Steve again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when I’m gone you’ll need love to light the shadows on your face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fanfic-obsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=fanfic-obsessed).



> Written for [fanfic-obsessed](http://fanfic-obsessed.tumblr.com/), who wanted Bucky regaining the majority of his memories and subsequently turning himself in to the new SHIELD, and the new SHIELD not actually bothering to mention this to Steve. Included requests: Bucky interviewing the other Avengers in search of someone to take his place keeping Steve out of trouble, breaking into the director’s office, Bucky and Steve and body language, Bucky sending people he thinks can’t see Steve Rogers for Captain America away, and Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

It has to be a team, is the thing. One or two people can’t do it; the asset--32557038-- _Bucky_ learned that the hard way. One or two people can’t cover Steve Rogers’s sorry star-spangled ass like he needs; one or two people end up doing stupid shit like enlisting or even stupider shit like turning their backs for five minutes and letting _Steve_ enlist. 

If it _could_ be one or two people, it’d be Wilson and Romanoff and it’d already all be taken care of, it’d already all be fine. Romanoff’s always got another mission and Wilson’s got a 9-to-5 in DC, but for a normal person that’d still be good enough. 

But for fucking _Steve Rogers_ \-- 

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it. It’s been two months; they’re barely even questioning him anymore. 

It’s obvious that no one’s ever letting him see Steve again. 

.

.

.

He breaks out the first time because he’s so mind-numbingly bored. It’s stupid and suicidal and Steve-levels of a bad idea, but that’s probably why it’s the only thing that actually affects the boredom. 

The Winter Soldier was always bored, unless he was confused or in pain or trying to murder someone. Those were pretty much his only settings. He didn’t even understand why they fucking _hurt_ him, the stupid shock-brained thing. Bucky Barnes was bored sometimes and used to go out and dance or go on dates or run around with Steve, until the Army; he’d appreciated the boredom, then. Boredom meant nobody was getting killed, meant 32557038 wasn’t on a damn operating table being cut into and injected and cut into and injected and--

He’s got a complicated relationship with boredom. 

And he doesn’t even have to _try_ to break out, is the thing; the night guards fuck up and he steps right through the whisper-thin opening they give him _(to the Winter Soldier; a whisper is the same thing as a scream)_. They don’t even notice him go. 

He doesn’t even know _where_ to go. 

He could leave. They’re not asking him real questions anymore, and he’s told them everything useful he could think of. There wasn’t much, anyway--nobody’d cared about making sure the weapon understood the nuances of any given situation. The weapon only had to fire when they pulled the trigger. 

SHIELD doesn’t need him, is the thing. Someone might want to execute him and make a show of it, and he’s not going to pretend he wouldn’t deserve it, but that’s really all it is. It’d be an empty gesture either way; decommissioning a misfiring weapon, putting down a beaten dog that bit the wrong person. 

But more important than the pointlessness of it is the fact that it’d cut Steve, even if Steve doesn’t want to see him again. Steve’s like that. 

Better just to disappear, Bucky thinks. Steve can just assume things, then, and it’s _Steve_. He’ll assume something . . . better. He’s sure he will. That Bucky’s fixing something, or doing penance, or moving on and having a quiet life someplace that no one else can find him. 

Maybe he’ll even actually do some of that, if he can figure out a way. 

Instead, he goes to the director’s office and sits quietly in front of the desk. It’s an old procedure, he’s almost certain _(dark rooms and a gun on the table and near-empty glasses)_ , but he’s too tired to fight every one of those off. It’s better than most of the other ones he’s been remembering. 

No one’s very pleased to find him. 

He goes back quietly, because how else would he go? 

.

.

.

The questions are real again for a few days and Bucky thinks it might last, but it doesn’t. 

It has to be a team, he thinks again, staring at the ceiling of his cell. That’s what the Avengers are anyway, isn’t it? 

He’s a fucking idiot for ever thinking they’d let Steve anywhere near him. 

.

.

.

The guards don’t fuck up this time, but Bucky hears the whisper _(the scream)_ and slips through it anyway. He can’t _not_. 

No. He could not. He just . . . 

It’s so quiet in here, and they don’t ask him real questions anymore. 

He spends six hours pacing the halls and breaking into locked rooms and purposefully rearranging things, leaving small disturbances behind. Nothing dangerous or messy, just--differences. Things people would notice. 

Things a ghost wouldn’t leave. 

It’s stupid. 

He waits in the director’s office again, after. It’s not the director he killed, but of course it wouldn’t be. It’s not someone he recognizes, which is much more important. 

In all honesty, the first time he’d been sitting here, he’d expected it to be Pierce. He doesn’t know what that says about him. He doesn’t know what it says about him that he came to SHIELD at _all_ , after everything. 

Nothing good, but that’s already obvious. 

.

.

.

Three months. 

Bucky follows every whisper. 

.

.

.

every

.

.

.

single

.

.

.

one

.

.

.

The cell door jerks open. The asset sits up to be processed; 32557038 sits up to move out; Bucky sits up for the latest round of non-questions. That’s the only reason they ever open a door, unless it’s to move him to a new cell; food and water just get pushed in through the slot. 

Sometimes he wonders how long it’s going to take them to realize he only _keeps_ breaking out because they keep giving him new places to do it out of. Getting through the new security and finding the director’s office is kind of like a game, now, or at least the closest thing to one he’ll ever play again. 

It’d be funny, if it weren’t pathetic. 

“Bucky,” the guard standing in the doorway says, and the asset/32557038/ _Bucky_ forgets everything he was thinking and freezes. That’s--that’s not--

“You came,” he says, stupid and abrupt. Steve’s staring. Bucky stares right back; drinks him up, bright and shining, blue and silver and streaks of red filling up the whole door and golden-haloed in the harsh fluorescent light. 

And there’s definitely something unhealthy in the way Bucky’s seeing him right now, but hell if he cares. He’s _been_ in Hell; he’ll take whatever taste of the opposite God’s gonna give him the mercy of, even knowing he’s only going to lose it again any minute now. 

He’ll still take it. 

“How long--” Steve cuts himself off, expression tight, and something hot moves in Bucky’s gut. 32557038’s gut. Maybe even the _asset’s_ gut. 

Steve didn’t know he was here. 

Steve didn’t _know_. 

He didn’t . . . he didn’t think of that before, for some reason. 

“Wasn’t really counting,” he says, the hot thing in his gut curling and uncurling and slowly clawing its way up his throat. It’s hard to control his voice; harder to keep his eyes from blinking too quickly. 

He counted. He counted every fucking _second_. 

He just didn’t know what he was counting for. 

Or _on_ , maybe. 

.

.

.

Steve takes Bucky out of the cell. He’s supposed to stay in it, but if he’d wander out of it for numb-brained boredom he’d fucking burn it _down_ for Steve Rogers. He’d kill anyone, do anything, take off the other fucking _arm_ \--

Steve takes him out of the cell. Bucky watches him. Or 32557038 watches him. Or the asset, maybe; maybe it’s the asset. Probably not, though, because the asset doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. Bucky doesn’t either, really, but it’s not like Bucky’s _Bucky_. 

32557038 understands. 

Steve walks in front, and 32557038 walks just behind him and to the side--on his right, this time. Maybe it’s supposed to be the left, but no, his body falls into line so naturally that he’s sure it’s right. He knows where Steve is going even without knowing where Steve is going, because following him feels that natural and easy. 

They end up in the cafeteria. Bucky has no idea why. Steve puts a tray full of food in front of him and stares across the table. 

This is not what he expected. 

They don’t even talk, but he eats everything on the tray. It doesn’t taste good--Bucky’s not sure he even remembers what “good” tastes are like--but he damn well eats every bite. 

.

.

.

The questions stop. The meals get better. Steve shows up twice a week like clockwork for two-hour visits and takes Bucky to the cafeteria or gym or once even the damn _range_ , which Bucky would probably kill him for if he weren’t still so worried about accidentally killing him. 

They don’t even talk, really, but four hours a week with Steve Rogers does more to deal with the boredom than anything else ever could. 

It also makes him sick to his stomach, every time. Steve’s strong and _good_ , Steve’ll fight anyone or anything, Steve’ll always _do_ the right thing--so what’s he doing _here_ , what’s he doing compromising himself like this? What’s he doing acting like this is something he _should_ be doing? 

Bucky doesn’t ask, though. No part of him wants to, because all of them know his asking might lead to Steve’s _stopping_. 

Except maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll be worse. Maybe it’ll lead to Steve saying something that reminds Bucky why he can’t let Steve do this. Something that’ll remind him of the way that Steve didn’t fight him and didn’t put him down when he could or should have; of just how dead the other would’ve been if just one thing had gone just that little bit different--if Bucky’d hit harder, thought slower, just let the stress and terror and uncertainty blow right through him without catching hold, like he’d always done before. 

If Steve’d been one ounce less important to 32557038. 

But Bucky doesn’t ask, and Steve doesn’t stop or say something. 

.

.

.

Once the director asks if there’s something they can get for him. It might be sarcasm, but Bucky hasn’t heard either sarcasm or that question in a long time, so he treats it like it’s sincere and thinks about it. The director watches him think. It bothers him, but it always did. Has. Does. 

He thinks. 

“An Avenger,” Bucky says eventually, watching the director in return. “Doesn’t matter which one.” 

The director watches him for a very long time before answering that. 

.

.

.

It’s Romanoff. Bucky would’ve probably expected her, if he’d bothered to expect he’d actually get anyone at all; she’s the only member of the original line-up left aside from Steve, and probably the best-suited to survive him. Or the worst-suited to survive him. But that’s . . . something else, he thinks. Something he’s not so sure about. 

He thinks. 

“You asked for me?” she asks, tiny in the bolted-down chair across from his cot and taking up his entire cell simply by virtue of taking up none of it at all. 

It would make sense to another asset, Bucky assumes. It doesn’t really make sense to _him_ , though. 

“No,” he says. “Asked for an Avenger. Said it didn’t matter which one.” 

_“Really,”_ she says, one eyebrow arching. 

They talk some. They talk some more than that. She tells him a story about a scar on her stomach that she might actually think is true and he says, “This is just like Stalingrad all over again.” She gets a very strange look in the back of her eye, but doesn’t recite the answer. Maybe she doesn’t remember. Maybe he’s remembering wrong. 

It doesn’t matter, really. He’d already decided about her before she even walked into the building. Some part of him had decided about her back in DC, he thinks, even before he knew he was going to need to decide at all. 

_You and I remember Stalingrad very differently,_ says the little girl in his dreams that night. 

.

.

.

Steve needs someone to cover him. Steve needs a _team_ to cover him. He’s never going to stop coming if he doesn’t have a team to cover him. He’ll keep getting confused and keep coming back and not realize the mistake he’s made. Is making. 

Romanoff and Wilson are obvious choices, but not enough. Barton’s retired, Thor’s on Asgard again--assuming he wouldn’t just be egging the terrible ideas on--and no one knows where Banner is anymore. Bucky could make an educated guess, but it’d just be _“as far away as possible”_. 

Stark is . . . somewhere, apparently. Possibly also retired, but it’s murkier territory. Barton turned in his remaining SHIELD and Stark tech at the Avengers facility, but Stark _is_ the Iron Man tech, so . . . 

Somewhere, apparently. 

Fury is dead, except he’s not dead, except he’s dead. The Commandos are _dead_ -dead and Carter’s too old and just as fucked up in the head as Bucky is. Hill is still SHIELD and still _has_ been SHIELD, and Bucky doesn’t trust anyone who’s still SHIELD, not ever. 

Rhodes shows up next, and Rhodes is where Bucky meets the _other_ problem, because when he talks to Rhodes about what it was like when Steve dragged him out of the factory in fire and terror, Rhodes is impressed. Rhodes admires the effort and the implications behind it and even the things Bucky just says outright. Rhodes admires the _story_. 

“Sounds like Cap was a hellraiser in the field from day one,” he says, smiling in amusement. 

Bucky stares blankly at him. 

“Get out,” he says. Rhodes blinks, but pushes himself to his feet and leaves without asking why. Bucky’s glad he did, and also angry he did because he wanted to curse and yell and scream and _break_ something, and--that _wasn’t_ day one, Bucky thinks, burning with fury and frustration as he buries himself in his bunk and drags the blankets over his head. 

The blankets are better since Steve started coming, too. 

.

.

.

Next up is Carter. Not that Carter. He tells her the same story he told Rhodes and she doesn’t say anything for a moment, watching him assessingly. Either the Avengers and the not-exactly-Avengers are sharing information or she’s been briefed about previous interrogations by SHIELD. She was SHIELD before; she could be again. She might already be again. 

“You tell Captain America stories the exact same way my aunt does,” she says eventually, just looking at him. Something in Bucky’s gut goes white-hot. 

“Get out,” he says. Carter gives him a nod, unfolds out of the chair, and leaves without another word. 

They’re _not_ Captain America stories. 

That’s not whose stories they are. 

.

.

.

Foster has no idea who Steve is and Selvig has even less of one. Lewis and Boothby aren’t even worth questioning; even if they _did_ know Steve they’d never be able to keep up with him. Sif and the Warriors Three are all on the far side of the Bifrost. Someone says something about a man with a new kind of super-suit; someone mentions a doctor and describes him as “strange”; someone talks about a devil in New York back-alleys, a nurse in the night, people who go down and get back up, people the ground quakes for, people with machines in their bodies, people with fire in their mouths and under their cracking skin. There’s a prince or a king, there’s some other captain, there’s the dark side of the _moon_ \--

There’s nothing, because they’re all nobody to Steve, whoever they are, so they’re all nobody to Bucky. 

He only talks to Maximoff for five minutes. They don’t try to talk again. 

And the Vision with the Mind Gem shining halo-golden on his forehead--the Vision he can’t even let into the fucking _cell_. 

.

.

.

Steve needs a team, Bucky tells himself, eyes squeezed shut and face buried in his pillow. He needs to get it together, he needs to do that, he has to do that because Steve needs a team Steve needs a team Steve needs a _fucking team_ \--

“Oh, well, this is terrible. Love what you’ve totally failed to do with the place, Lefty,” Stark says, and Bucky jerks his head up to find the other standing in the open doorway of his cell in jeans and a T-shirt and no armor whatsoever. He’s got a backpack, but he’s unarmed. 

Bucky stares at the only person between him and anyplace not this cell or _Steve_. The plates in his arm rearrange instinctively. 

“Then again, not like SHIELD was ever known for being gracious hosts,” Stark says, then dumps his backpack out on the floor. Bucky jerks at the sound of metal hitting metal and distressed beeping and small alarms go off in the scattered pile of scrap as its contents roll every which way. He presses back against the wall, staring down at the flashing lights and moving parts as something in the back of his head prepares for _the experiment_ , but Stark just drops into the chair, rifles through the pile, and starts working on the first machine he picks up. “Alright, shoot,” he says. “Wait, no, bad choice of words.” 

“What?” Bucky asks blankly, still staring at the small scattered machines on the floor. One of them looks like it has a scalpel attached, but he can’t bring himself to lean in close enough to confirm. 

“Your little Avengers/ex-Avengers/Avenger groupies spiel?” Stark asks, eyebrows raising as he glances up. His hands don’t stop working. “I mean, you kicked Rhodey out after fifteen minutes so I figure I won’t last five, but idle hands, devil’s work, you know the drill.” 

“The devil’s work,” Bucky agrees distantly, hands flexing not at all idly. He wonders if he was the one who killed Howard. The file dump was impractically vague about it, so probably. 

“God knows I’ve done enough of that,” Stark says, twisting apart the machine in his hands, and Bucky starts. Then he remembers--weaponsmonger, privatizing world peace, Ironmonger, Vanko, “the Mandarin”, _Ultron_ \--

Right. Stark’s like him. 

Except Stark’s not like him. Stark didn’t betray something, Stark didn’t let them put somebody else in his head, Stark didn’t--

“I think I killed your parents,” Bucky says, and Stark’s hands finally still. 

“It’s a theory,” he agrees, watching him intently as he talks. “Was kind of hoping you might tell me either way, actually. Just for my own reference, you understand, not like knowing the specific trigger HYDRA pulled actually tells me anything else about _why_ they pulled it, and that part seems to be pretty clear at this point anyway, I think we’re all pretty confident that we’ve figured that out. So _did_ you kill my parents?” 

“Maybe,” Bucky says, because the truth is, as usual, that he doesn’t know the truth. 

“Yeah,” Stark says, going back to his machine. “Well, not exactly surprised to hear that.” 

.

.

.

Bucky forgets to tell Stark the story about the factory, partially because the machines are distracting and partially because the other ends up rushing out after getting a phone call about a meeting he’d apparently forgotten before he gets the chance to. Stark takes the backpack but leaves his sunglasses and at least half the shit that was in it. 

Bucky doesn’t know what to do with any of Stark’s things; the cell’s barely furnished and he hasn’t had anything actually _in_ it aside from Avengers. There’s not a shelf or foot locker or some hidden place he keeps things; he didn’t even bother making a shank any of the chances he had. Too easy. No interest. 

The guards don’t even search it anymore. 

The third time he steps on something he forgot was there he finally gives up and shoves it all under his cot in one awkward lump. Something in the pile beeps feebly and Bucky buries it with extreme prejudice, but it only beeps more after that. He crawls under the bed and tries to smother the sound with his pillow but further beeping ensues, and in the end he has to drag it all back out to figure out which machine it is so he can break it. Or turn it off, he guesses, but “break it” is definitely still on the table either way. 

The beeping turns out to be coming from some bizarre little spider-shaped thing with a lot of plates and moving parts; when he pokes it it curls in defensively on itself, turns into a ball, and then rolls up the underside of his arm _what the fuck_ \--oh, oh, it’s magnetic. Apparently. 

He wasn’t aware the _arm_ was even magnetic, but okay, learn something new and insane about your evil Nazi-built prosthetic every day, he guesses. 

Then the spider-robot rolls further and sticks to the back of his shoulder blade, which is . . . unsettling. Bucky debates trying to figure out if there’s more metal under the skin or if the spider-robot is just weird for all of two seconds before deciding it’s not worth the stress of it possibly being the former and just brushing it off. 

“The fuck,” he mutters, watching it drop onto the bed and flail feebly for its little spider-robot balance. 

“Oh, hey, you figured out how to activate it,” the spider-robot says in Stark’s voice, sounding surprised. Bucky jumps so hard he nearly hits the wall. “Good job, Star-Spangled Sidekick, Rogers just ignores the things. Kids these days, no appreciation for craftsmanship. Well, kids _your_ days.” 

“You left all this shit in here on purpose?” Bucky asks, eyeing the spider-robot suspiciously. He might still break it. 

“Um, _obviously_ , Snowflake, keep up here,” Stark snorts. 

“You tore outta here like your ass was on fire,” Bucky retorts dubiously. It hadn’t been a big leap to assume he’d just forgotten. Not like SHIELD didn’t have all the surveillance they needed already, after all. 

“Pepper’s got that effect on people,” Stark replies dismissively. “I’m a genius engineer, you think I just leave my expensive equipment lying around?”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky says, eyeing the spider-robot as it continues to feebly attempt to right itself on the mattress. “And the sunglasses?” 

“. . . okay but to be fair, my sunglasses _are_ expensive equipment,” Stark says. 

.

.

.

Bucky forgets to tell him the story again. 

.

.

.

Steve visits. They don’t talk. 

Steve tries to make promises with his eyes, though, and Bucky hides his behind Stark’s expensive sunglasses and pretends not to understand them. 

He can tell Steve wants to take his hand, and Steve can tell he doesn’t want him to do it. And that he _does_ want him to do it. 

Steve doesn’t do it. 

.

.

.

Still no sign of Banner or Thor; still no way he’s talking to Maximoff or the Vision or Rhodes again. Wilson and Barton both come by, but Bucky doesn’t bother telling either of them the story; Wilson he already knows about and there’s no point telling Barton. 

He and Wilson talk about the EXO-FALCON. He and Barton talk scopes and wind shear and mental math. 

“Actually, I was always fucking terrified of falling,” Wilson says. 

“This is just like Budapest all over again,” Barton says. 

Bucky almost answers one or both of them, but--doesn’t. 

.

.

.

Steve shows up for the weekly visit. There’s still no team, still no stopping point, and they still don’t talk. Not really, anyway. 

Steve needs a team and Bucky can’t be a part of it. Worse, Steve wants to get Bucky _out_ , and that’s--laughable, to put it mildly. Bucky’s pretty sure SHIELD would’ve kept him in a lockbox forever without saying a damn word to anyone about it if Steve hadn’t tripped over him; he doubts their plans are changing just because he has visiting hours now. 

Obviously they’re not. 

He’ll never see daylight again. 

“Who _is_ Pepper, anyway?” Bucky asks, staring at the ceiling of his cell with Tony Stark’s little self-replicating spider-bots curled up on his chest. Well--one of them. The rest seem to like his arm better. 

He already knows who Potts is, of course; or he’s fairly sure he knows. Some of his intel’s a little erratic, mostly because of how erratic _he_ was when he was gathering it. Still, he doesn’t know the way _Stark_ knows. 

“What, you wanna meet her too?” Stark snorts. 

“Sure, why not,” Bucky replies with a humorless imitation of a laugh. Stark’d be likelier to leave him the _armor_ , he thinks. 

He can’t decide about Stark, really. He doesn’t think the man’s what Steve needs, not really, but he doesn’t know he’s _not_ , either. He’s probably just as bad an idea as leaving Steve on his own would be, though; they’d just _both_ get their dumb asses killed. 

What Bucky wants is four Wilsons to be both supportive of but also wise to Steve’s shit and two Romanoffs to keep everybody else appropriately paranoid; what he’s got is _one_ Wilson and _one_ Romanoff, a lot of dead ends, and the tiny spider-robot Tony Stark left in his cell. 

And Steve, until Steve gets himself killed. 

It’s not exactly the Howling Commandos. Hell, it’s not even the Avengers. 

It’s not what Steve _needs_. 

.

.

.

Steve shows up for his next visit, and neither of them knows what to do. 

.

.

.

 _Hold my hand,_ Bucky thinks in bed that night, eyes squeezed shut and pillow dragged over his face, fried-out head spinning and spinning behind it, refusing to come down. Dancing with a woman in a red dress and trying to kill one with red hair, trying to get killed _by_ one, trying to cut someone open, cut something else apart, taking a shot, missing a shot, reaching out to-- _Hold my hand even when I don’t want it, I don’t want it, I WANT it, don’t drop me don’t let me go grab my FUCKING HAND--_

He breathes. He breathes again. 

He isn’t what Steve needs. 

One of the robots scuttles down his arm with an urgent whirring noise and pushes into his palm. He holds onto it because it’s there, and doesn’t shove away the ones that press in against his back and shoulders either. He thinks about what it would be like to be like that, single-minded and single-purposed, metal all the way to the bone. 

He can’t say he misses it, but of course he misses it. 

.

.

.

Steve shows up for his next visit, and . . . 

.

.

.

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes,” a pleasant voice greets. Bucky looks up expecting a SHIELD agent. 

It’s not a SHIELD agent. 

“Uh?” he manages, staring stupidly at the tall redheaded woman in the doorway. Not the redheaded woman he would’ve expected, now that he’s been bothering to expect one. Not the redheaded woman he _ever_ would’ve expected. 

“Sorry, I know I’m a bit late to the party,” Potts says apologetically, picking her way across the machine pieces Stark’s robots left scattered on the floor; they’ve kept building more of themselves from the scrap, and also from parts of Bucky’s bed. He didn’t really see the point in arguing about it. She stops next to the bed, tucking the slim folder under her arm up a little higher against her side. 

The folder, Bucky can’t help but notice, has a small, strange burn mark on the corner. 

“‘Party’?” he repeats blankly, frowning at it. 

“Well, I’m sure F.R.I.D.A.Y. could arrange something,” Potts says, giving him a little smile. “We’re definitely not letting Tony write the guest list, though. Are you ready?” 

“Okay,” Bucky says, because it’s not as if he has much choice in whatever she’s talking about. Potts gently nudges a few half-assembled robots aside with the side of her shoe, and the fully-assembled ones whirr into motion and start gathering each other up. Bucky watches, baffled; that’s new. Potts heads for the door, and he belatedly realizes she expects him to follow and nearly trips over the robots catching up, the lot of them scuttling at his heels like goddamn puppies. 

Guest list for _what_ , he wonders inanely. He hasn’t left the cell with anyone not Steve or a guard yet. Where are they even . . . 

“I think you’ll find everything’s in order here,” Potts says, turning that pleasant smile on the guards as she holds out the thumbprint-scorched file. 

. . . going. 

.

.

.

“Well, you _said_ you wanted to meet her,” Stark says reasonably, reclaiming his sunglasses and sliding them on while Bucky’s still blinking in the light. 

The _daylight_. 

“I told you the kind of effect Pepper has on people,” Stark says as the limo pulls up. 

“The _fuck_ ,” Bucky says in disbelief, and Potts smiles pleasantly at him. 

.

.

.

A fucking _limo_. 

.

.

.

Stark moves him into the tower like it’s a remotely sane or reasonable thing to do and Bucky, for lack of a director’s office to break into, sits in the bedroom Stark offered and waits. The bedroom’s five times the size of his cell, not counting the rest of the attached suite, and the robots followed him into it and are currently running a sweep on the place. Which is just . . . a whole different problem, really, he isn’t even getting into it. 

Also, the suite only locks from the inside. 

He still can’t wrap his head around whatever the hell Potts did. If Steve could’ve just walked in and walked out with him at any time he _knows_ he would’ve--hell, Steve would’ve done it no matter what if he’d thought he could get him out in one piece, allowed or not. Whatever strings Potts pulled or bullshit she fed SHIELD or thing written on that piece of paper must’ve been goddamn _legendary_. 

He can’t wrap his head around it. Can’t believe it. Can’t . . . 

One of the little spider-bots rolls over Bucky’s foot mid-patrol and he picks it up and sets it in his lap and looks at it, inspecting its various parts in search of a repulsor system. For some reason it’s been annoying him that the things can’t fly and he keeps feeling like if he checks again one of them will have corrected the oversight. 

Also, it’s something to do that doesn’t involve higher processing power, because he’s pretty short on that right now. 

He wasn’t going to get out. He wasn’t _supposed_ to get out. Things were safer and better and made more sense that way--for everyone. Anyone. _Steve_. 

But he did. He has. 

And now . . . now he just has to wait for Steve to find out he’s here, and come and visit him again. 

.

.

.

Steve does, because of course Steve does. 

.

.

.

They don’t talk, and they don’t hold hands, and Steve still doesn’t have the right team. But that’s all right, Bucky thinks, because until Steve _does_ have the right team--he can do something, now, until Steve has the team he needs. 

So right now . . . 

So right now they both have a team, he guesses. 

“Just like Brooklyn all over again,” he says, watching one of the spider-robots climb up his arm and absently wondering if Stark’s ever going to come and take them back. Steve gives him a questioning look, eyebrows raising slightly. 

“Not really, but I’m not complaining,” he says, and Bucky smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/) ❤


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